IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v251y2025ics0165176525001442.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On equilibrium cyber risk

Author

Listed:
  • Ramírez, Carlos A.

Abstract

I develop a simple model to study how the interplay between institutions’ and hackers’ incentives can alter cyber risk within an equilibrium context. By formalizing the strategic interaction between institutions and hackers, the model characterizes how changes in heterogeneity across institutions, cybersecurity technologies, and hacker competition can lead to material shifts in cyber risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Ramírez, Carlos A., 2025. "On equilibrium cyber risk," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:251:y:2025:i:c:s0165176525001442
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112307
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176525001442
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112307?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rustam Jamilov & Hélène Rey & Ahmed Tahoun, 2021. "The Anatomy of Cyber Risk," NBER Working Papers 28906, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Crosignani, Matteo & Macchiavelli, Marco & Silva, André F., 2023. "Pirates without borders: The propagation of cyberattacks through firms’ supply chains," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 432-448.
    3. Hao Jiang & Naveen Khanna & Qian Yang & Jiayu Zhou, 2024. "The Cyber Risk Premium," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(12), pages 8791-8817, December.
    4. Antonis Kotidis & Stacey L. Schreft, 2022. "Cyberattacks and Financial Stability: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2022-025, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Kamiya, Shinichi & Kang, Jun-Koo & Kim, Jungmin & Milidonis, Andreas & Stulz, René M., 2021. "Risk management, firm reputation, and the impact of successful cyberattacks on target firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(3), pages 719-749.
    6. Anil K. Kashyap & Anne Wetherilt, 2019. "Some Principles for Regulating Cyber Risk," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 109, pages 482-487, May.
    7. Eisenbach, Thomas M. & Kovner, Anna & Lee, Michael Junho, 2022. "Cyber risk and the U.S. financial system: A pre-mortem analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 802-826.
    8. Chang, Jin-Wook & Jayachandran, Kartik & Ramírez, Carlos A. & Tintera, Ali, 2024. "On the anatomy of cyberattacks," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).
    9. Aldasoro, Iñaki & Gambacorta, Leonardo & Giudici, Paolo & Leach, Thomas, 2022. "The drivers of cyber risk," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Crosignani, Matteo & Macchiavelli, Marco & Silva, André F., 2023. "Pirates without borders: The propagation of cyberattacks through firms’ supply chains," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 432-448.
    2. Chang, Jin-Wook & Jayachandran, Kartik & Ramírez, Carlos A. & Tintera, Ali, 2024. "On the anatomy of cyberattacks," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).
    3. Aldasoro, Iñaki & Gambacorta, Leonardo & Giudici, Paolo & Leach, Thomas, 2022. "The drivers of cyber risk," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    4. Anand, Kartik & Duley, Chanelle & Gai, Prasanna, 2022. "Cybersecurity and financial stability," Discussion Papers 08/2022, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    5. Tan, Weijie & Guo, Binhua & Zhang, Qiantao, 2025. "Cybersecurity governance and corporate market value: Perspectives from investor trust and supply chain trust," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    6. Martin Boyer & Martin Eling, 2023. "New advances on cyber risk and cyber insurance," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 48(2), pages 267-274, April.
    7. Matteo Malavasi & Gareth W. Peters & Stefan Treuck & Pavel V. Shevchenko & Jiwook Jang & Georgy Sofronov, 2024. "Cyber Risk Taxonomies: Statistical Analysis of Cybersecurity Risk Classifications," Papers 2410.05297, arXiv.org.
    8. Boot, Arnoud & Hoffmann, Peter & Laeven, Luc & Ratnovski, Lev, 2021. "Fintech: what’s old, what’s new?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    9. José Ramón Martínez Resano, 2022. "Digital resilience and financial stability. The quest for policy tools in the financial sector," Financial Stability Review, Banco de España, issue Autumn.
    10. Martins, António Miguel & Moutinho, Nuno, 2025. "Stock-Term market impact of major cyber-attacks: Evidence for the ten most exposed insurance firms to cyber risk," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    11. José Ramón Martínez Resano, 2022. "Digital resilience and financial stability. The quest for policy tools in the financial sector," Financial Stability Review, Banco de España, issue Autumn.
    12. Eisenbach, Thomas M. & Kovner, Anna & Lee, Michael Junho, 2022. "Cyber risk and the U.S. financial system: A pre-mortem analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 802-826.
    13. Liu, Xiaohui & Luo, Juan & Yawson, Alfred, 2025. "Equity offering following cyberattacks," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    14. Md. Hamid Uddin & Md. Hakim Ali & Mohammad Kabir Hassan, 2020. "Cybersecurity hazards and financial system vulnerability: a synthesis of literature," Risk Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(4), pages 239-309, December.
    15. Costa, João & Cró, Susana & Moutinho, Nuno & Martins, António Miguel, 2025. "Airline stock market reaction to CrowdStrike IT outage: An event study analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    16. Toni Ahnert & Michael Brolley & David Cimon & Ryan Riordan, 2022. "Cyber Risk and Security Investment," Staff Working Papers 22-32, Bank of Canada.
    17. Abthal Abdajabar & Nur Arzilawati Md Yunus, 2023. "A Review On The Impact Of Cybersecurity Crimes In Financial Institutions During The Time Of Covid-19," Acta Informatica Malaysia (AIM), Zibeline International Publishing, vol. 7(1), pages 19-23, February.
    18. Daniel Celeny & Loic Mar'echal, 2024. "Cyber risk and the cross-section of stock returns," Papers 2402.04775, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.
    19. Zängerle, Daniel & Schiereck, Dirk, 2022. "Modelling and predicting enterprise‑level cyber risks in the context of sparse data availability," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 136276, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    20. Kwangmin Jung & Chanjin Kim & Jiyeon Yun, 2025. "The effect of corporate risk management on cyber risk mitigation: Evidence from the insurance industry," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 50(2), pages 259-301, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D39 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Other
    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • M15 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - IT Management

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:251:y:2025:i:c:s0165176525001442. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.